Gender Gap in Computer Science Growing

EReidJ writes "Looks like finding a compatible girl geek in the computer profession is becoming even harder, as an already wide gender gap among Computer Science majors is becoming larger. From the article: 'A Globe review shows that the proportion of women among bachelor's degree recipients in computer science peaked at 37 percent in 1985 and then went on the decline. Women have comprised about 28 percent of computer science bachelor's degree recipients in the last few years, and in the elite confines of research universities, only 17 percent of graduates are women [...] The argument of many computer scientists is that women who study science or technology, because they are defying social expectations, are in an uncomfortable position to begin with. So they are more likely to be dissuaded from pursuing computer science if they are exposed to an unpleasant environment, bad teaching, and negative stereotypes like the image of the male hacker.'"

Comments

Unplesant environment

[winkydink]

Like how many male computer geeks lack the social skills to interract with the opposite sex and mistake friendly interraction by female coworkers as "interest" in something more.

Re:Unplesant environment

[IAmTheDave]

Seriously!

For fucks sake, I am so tired of this pandering if certain things are not entirelly, totally equal. Wait - only 48% of people in profession X are female? Well there must be some gender bias! Quick, admit more women into universities into these studies! Quick, discourage males from being allowed to propigate such a gender biased view of things!

Maybe less women WANT to go into CS! Listen, there is, and will always BE, fundamental differences between the sexes, between the way the mind works, between general interests. Yes, there is overlap, but the majority of young boys don't want to play with Barbies in pink dresses. Does that indicate some gender bias? Sure... is it wrong, bad, or need to be corrected? NO! It's nature, just let it be already.

Re:Unplesant environment

[xIcemanx]

I don't think it's a 48% difference here. I think such extreme differences can't be explained by an X or Y chromosome - it's symptomatic of an overall negative CS attitude towards women as a whole that needs to be fixed anyway. There's nothing fundamentally male about CS - it's just we discourage women from doing it, thereby robbing ourselves of potentially valuable talent.

Re:Unplesant environment

[Billosaur]

Like how many male computer geeks lack the social skills to interract with the opposite sex and mistake friendly interraction by female coworkers as "interest" in something more.

As far as I can recall, they never offered "Etiquette for Geeks" as a part of the Comp Sci curriculum when I went college, but then again that was back in the age of the dinosaurs (the DEC-10).

Social skills isn't that big a factor. I find very few of my programming peers who fit the "geek programmer" stereotype. Plenty of us are married, have houses and families. Mind you my wife is not a tech-head and we don't discuss my work in-depth, but she could probably understand it. Geeks aren't going to find women on the Comp Sci track anyway; they'll do a better job impressing the bubble-head peroxide blondes who talk into their mouses.

Re:Unplesant environment

[IAmTheDave]

I fail to see how we (humans) actively discourage women from entering the CS workforce. It's true that some IT professions have gotten a reputation as existing as a couple of overly obese 35 year old virgins in a server room without windows, but I'd like to see an example of someone (overtly or not) saying "women should not do IT" or "you as a woman do not want to enter into the IT world." Obviously it doesn't have to be that forward, but actively discouraging women, and women being discouraged by an untrue or outdated stereotype are two different things. A positive eduactional campaign may be in order, but anything more than that - actively recruiting women just to close the gender gap that may or may not be simply the nature of things is unnecessary and unfair to those men that actually WANT to do CS, in my opinion.

Re:Unplesant environment

[Hannah E. Davis]

Unfortunately, it also goes the other way around -- if a male geek is just ineptly trying to be friendly, a female co-worker might misintepret it as interest. Because, y'know, if a guy is trying to talk to a girl as an equal or even as a friend, he obviously just wants in her pants! Especially if she's ugly and he's already found himself a cute geek girl. Yeah, really.

Of course, if the girl has any kind of brain in her, she'll just talk to the guy, say "Sorry, I'm not interested" and whether he was actually interested or not, that will be the end of that. It's always worked for me anyway (when dealing with both geek and non-geek guys).

Re:Unplesant environment

[keraneuology]

Couple the declining quantity of women in CS studies and the overwhelming majority of women in college in general and a pattern begins to emerge. Anybody who can't read the numbers is seriously deficient in critical and analytical thinking and doesn't belong in CS studies in the first place.

But the bias concern is only applicable to gender stacking towards more men: women outnumber men by far in nursing, education and womens' studies yet nobody makes a peep about the inequities involved (or outright discrimination).

Re:Unplesant environment

[Anonymous Coward]

There's also something of a feedback loop in evidence here. "Computer geeks" lack the social skill sto interact with the opposite sex because there are often very few learning opportunities for those geeks to have picked up those social skills within the population of their daily interactions.

When I was at UofI champaign in the late nineties, the percentage of females in the Comp Sci program was probably hovering around 20% for the freshman classes and then would decay toward 10% by the fourth year.

Now, it's true that the ratio of females at the entire university was closer to parity, and that the "computer geeks" just needed to venture outside of their comfort zones in order to interact and learn those skills of social interaction. It doesn't change the the existence of that particular feedback loop.

Re:Unplesant environment

[Pxtl]

Enough that a clever girl can get through a comp eng program without ever having to write a line of code if she plays her cards right - at least at the school I went to.

Re:Unplesant environment

[NetRAVEN5000]

"Boys are (often, typically, not always of course) encouraged to play with things like Legos, GI-Joe, Toy Trucks, etc; while girls are encouraged to play with barbies, dolls, and the like."

No, they aren't. It's just that it's assumed that guys are going to prefer trucks, dinosaurs, or army men or something, and that girls are going to prefer dolls and play makeup. And usually, that's the way it is.

It's instinct - females are typically gentler and more nurturing, and males are typically rougher. That's why if a boy is all alone, he's more likely to play with Ninja Turtles or GI Joe than Barbie and Ken, and why if a girl is all alone she'll probably prefer to play mother to a doll than pull out a bucket of plastic army men and stage a battle.

Not that boys would never play dolls if that's all they had - but if you've ever seen boys play with dolls, they're more likely to play with the Ken doll and race around in the sports car than play with Barbie. Same with girls - seems like if you give a girl a Ninja Turtle she's more likely to make it into a nurturing creature than a crime-fighting superhero.

Not that it's sexist or anything - that's just the way it is. Guys and girls are different, that's all.

Re:Unplesant environment

[jasonwc]

Sorry, for the crappy formatting. I accidentally chose HTML formatting. Here's a readable version:

You're assuming that women are choosing not to enter Computer Science because they simply have less interest in the area. While this may be, it doesn't explain the whole story. There are many areas where women show great interest and are still denied equal access. This, and not women's waining interest in CS most likely explains the decline in female CS majors.

  The legal profession is a good example of the discrimination the poster is referencing. Over the last few decades, women's enrollment at law schools has expanded dramatically. Most law schools now have equal or higher enrollment of women than men. I don't believe this can be fully explained (or explained) by greater interest in the Law on the part of women. Rather, Law Schools have made efforts to make the environment open and inclusive. While women faced discrimination in the 70s and 80s, Law schools now provide a far more equal teaching environment.

  Yet, despite this increase in enrollment, women attorneys have been leaving the field. While nearly 50% of new associates are women, less than 10% of partners are female. This can't be blown off as being due to lack of interest. Associates at large firms put in 60+ hours a week, and are surely commited to the responsibilities of partnership. Despite this, men are dispraportionately chosen for the highest paying positions. As in CS where women are often not given the same opportunities or support from faculty which is predominantly male (in CS I believe 80-90%+ if my memory serves me correctly), and thus decide to enter other fields, women are finding that Law firms that are willing to hire them as associates, are refusing them the higher paid and more prestigious partnership positions, and thus are also seeking to either leave the field or to start their own firms. The "Old Boys Club" is still alive and well in the United States. It's too easy to ignore these issues, and say that women are simply not interested, but this is an oversimplification of the issue.

  And as to your statement about boys not wanted to play with barbies- do you think this could possibly be caused by the fact that girls are socialized from birth to act in a manner that is appropriate for their sex? Their rooms are adorned in pink, they are given pink clothing to wear to seperate them from their male coutnerparts, and they are shown dolls and makeup as proper means of entertainment. The fact that we live in this society doesn't mean that is in any way natural, neutral, or necessary. We push girls to act a certain way, just as we push boys to act in a certain manner. Then we justify their inculcated differences as "natural".

  Jason Wittlin-Cohen

Re:Unplesant environment

[theStorminMormon]

Your post is a pretty good example of why not to trust statistics. You jump straight from the different statistics for male and female lawyers to conclusions as though the correlation between gender and salary is causal. You have to do a lot more work to get there.

Personally I think there's a lot of uncertainty here. For example you just assume that since women are willing to work 60 hours a week they must be just as motivated as men to go for partner. I don't think that's obvious at all. What about women who want to be mothers?

I also think that the whole "society tells women to play with barbie dolls" thing cuts both ways. Now society, instead of telling girls to play with barbie dolls, tries to tell young women that they can have a career and be a mother too. I believe that this is just setting women up for failure and dissappointment. This just sets women up for feelings of conflict and guilt and inadequacy when they can't live up to the mythical "do everything" mom. Plus I've always been saddened when I talked to girls my age or a little younger (in college or just graduated) who have this glow in their eyes that they're going to really *do* something - they're going to have a *career*!

Who the Hell talks like that? I'm not saying you shouldn't be excited about your career, but women are being sold a bunch of horseshit here. A career means welcome to the 9-5 grind. A career means a cubicle. A career means having to accept the authority of some corporate boss. That's what a career is. Sure, not all careers suck, but by and large Dilbert is what a career is, and yet women are being sold on this idea of a career as the path to fulfillment, enlightenment and self-actualization. What a crock!

It's this awful Orwellian lie that somehow becoming a cog in some corporate machine is the straight and narrow path towards really being someone. What it really is amounts to nothing more than a materialist, consumerist trap for women as well as men. It's the basic Tom Sawyer painting the fence story - and yet the vast majority of people, men and women alike, are lining up to trade their toys for a chance to whitewash the fence.

-stormin

Re:Unplesant environment

[IAmTheDave]

Why is it that we have this awful attitude that being a mother is somehow this dead-end proposition that requires no job skills?

This is (dare I say it) at least partially the fault of the women's movement. It's the same pendulum swing that all issues go through - from one extreme to the other.

Things start out with there definately being a gender bias in everything - down to denying women the right to vote. Women's suffrage comes along, gains traction, gets the right to vote, and keeps on moving (rightfully so.) But as every movement has, certain radicals decided that not only should women have equal opportunity and equal pay for equal work, but that the traditional roles of the female were to be shunned. Now that the opportunity to have a career existed, women chosing not to do so were holding the movement back, and were themselves the product of a still-unbalanced culture.

Whether or not culture still does favor men over women in the career/pay department is not the debate here - I think that we're at least starting to see the pendulum swing back towards center again. Women go to college in droves - to most young people, there is no understanding of a gender bias in continuing eduacation at all. Women are executives and CEOs, and are starting to have real representation at the top of the ladder. What this means is that said pendulum is now free to swing back, and people can start realizing that it's choice that was lacking before. Now a woman can choose her path - career, stay-at-home mother, or even both, and it is that choice that we support.

It's true, there is no more nobel a calling than motherhood. There is a reason that no matter how a child was raised, most would instantly kill or be killed for the welfare of their mother. So now women have true choice, and people will hopefully stop judging so harshly for any choice, be it stay-at-home mother or career woman. And like your wife, that choice can be mutually exclusive from the level of education or intelligence a woman may possess or strive for.

Re:Unplesant environment

[jasonwc]

The problem is that women are in essence given the choice of having children or a good career with advancement opportunities. Men aren't required to make this choice- they can have both. While it is true that women can have kids without staying home and that their husband can stay home with the kids, this doesn't happen for several reasons. First, there is a social stigma against women who have children and use day care rather than staying home with the child in his/her infancy. Secondly, and more importantly, very few men are willing to stay home with the kids and sacrafice their career. Society doesn't expect them to do so, and by and large, they aren't willing to. Women on the other hand, are expected to have children, and to stay home and care for them. The choice women make to have children and to stay home, and to care for their children isn't made in a void. Societal pressure and the unwillingness of men to take equal parental responsibility accounts for much of the decisions that we view as reflecting women's true will. We should recognize that societal discrimination affects the choices people make.

Re:Unplesant environment

[lahvak]

I know that this seems to be very rare and unpopular attitude these days, but when I went to college, me and most of my colleagues studied math because we liked it, we were interested in it, it was fun, and we were good at it. Of course, we sort of hoped to get some sort of math related job, but that was mostly because that way we could continue doing what we were good at and what we liked, and be payed for it.

Some of my friends from college have math related jobs, just like me. Some of us do use functional analysis, measure theory, PDE's and whatnot on daily basis. Many of my former colleagues have jobs that have very little to do with math, at least with the kind of math we studied. Some are in IT, some in banking sector, some are lawyers, even few politicians, but all of them tell me that the time and effort spent learning advanced math was not wasted for them. Even though they never use any of the stuff they have learned, they acquired skills that are very useful for their jobs.

Even though the lady that is the subject of this conversation most likely won't teach advanced calculus to her kids, she undoubtedly will teach to them her love of learning, intellectual challenge and curiosity, and appreciation for knowledge. I think that's the best we can give to our children.

Re:Unplesant environment

[Ironsides]

How many men are elementary teachers? I can think of only a few. Is this an example of a gender bias againts men?

Re:Unplesant environment

[Anonymous Coward]

I fail to see how we (humans) actively discourage women from entering the CS workforce.

You're flat out lying. Of course you know how institutional sexism works because you benefit from it all the time. You've just decided for yourself to pretend it isn't really there, and are now defensive about it.

Re:Unplesant environment

[Chris Burke]

If you're referring to Larry Summers, that's a misrepresentation of what he said. His claim was that *on average*, men are more interested in technical fields, and there's strong evidence that this is true. (Whether it's due to biological or social issues is a separate matter).

Bull-cocky. He explicitly referred to intrinsic -- meaning biological -- differences in aptitude being dominant over social and discriminatory factors. The relevent statement from his speech:

"So my best guess, to provoke you, of what's behind all of this is that the largest phenomenon, by far, is the general clash between people's legitimate family desires and employers' current desire for high power and high intensity, that in the special case of science and engineering, there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude, and that those considerations are reinforced by what are in fact lesser factors involving socialization and continuing discrimination."

I'm pretty sure the majority of male IT workers would be quite happy to have a higher percentage of females around.

Sure, "around", but how about "competing for promotions"? If the women were around but in a non-engineering capacity would these male IT workers care?

Re:Unplesant environment

[bnenning]

Bull-cocky. He explicitly referred to intrinsic -- meaning biological -- differences in aptitude being dominant over social and discriminatory factors.

That was the second of his three reasons. The first, which he placed the most weight on, was differing levels of desire to work in "high-powered jobs". He also specifically mentions differences in preferences relevant to engineering positions.

in the special case of science and engineering, there are issues of intrinsic aptitude, and particularly of the variability of aptitude

In many traits, including IQ, men appear to have a higher standard deviation than women. (This makes sense if you think about it; there are fundamental evolutionary reasons why it's better for nature to "gamble" with males than with females). So if you're looking at Nobel prize candidates, you may be 4 standard deviations out for males, but 5 for females. If you want to dispute the premises that's fine, but Summers's conclusions follow directly from them. (And if you do reject the premises, I hope you it's for a better reason than not liking the consequences). And again, this does not mean that any specific woman is incapable of being at the top of any field, nor does it justify sex discrimination.

Sure, "around", but how about "competing for promotions"?

Why would it be worse to compete with females than males for promotions?

Re:Unplesant environment

[theStorminMormon]

Dude, what are you smoking? This is an old and boring game.

1. Find some statistical differences between genders/race, etc.
2. Now pick the gender/race that is being oppressed.
3. Concoct the theory for why their position is evidence of oppression.

Note the orders of steps 2 and steps 3. That's where all the fun comes in.

I can only assume your previous bit about a "dean at a major university" was directed to what's-his-face at Harvard. In a meeting where the topic "why aren't more women in math/science classes" came up he said "gee... maybe women are just different and don't like them?"

How the Hell is that biased? If that's sexism rearing it's ugly head, then you're conclusive evidence that the medicine is worse than the sickness.

What if, and this is just a quesiton, what if women really don't like CS as much in general? The really scary thing about you is that your politics take precedent over questions about reality. That's like someone debating about what the answer to a math question should be instead of doing the math.

You seem to think that if a man ever tells a woman she's going to be less successful at something because she's a woman that this is sexist. But the fact is that, whether that's rude or not, SOMETIME'S IT'S THE TRUTH. In the real world where the rest of us live, men and women have different body shapes. A woman has wider hips for childbearing. Men have narrow hips. This means men can run farther and faster then woman. So if you take a bunch of guys and a bunch of girls, get them ready to race, and then tell the girls "anything guys can do, girls can do better" you might as well tell them "it's OK guys, 2+2=5 if you really want it to".

You're so caught up with the bogeyman of repressive patriarchy that you can't just see what all the rest of us on planet earth have noticed: men and women are different. When we say "you know, maybe women don't like math in general" it's not some hidden agenda - passive or aggressive - to keep women out of CS. It's actually a geuine question. We know we're different phsiologically. We know those differences extend to the brain. We know that numerous studies have shown that under the most controlled of circumsmtances gravitate towards different types of tasks and different methods of problem solving. Given this load of evidence it takes a truly dogmatic, knee-jerk reaction to be able to see past the blindingly obvious to find yet more evidence of repression where there really is none.

In my mind the real sexism is your sexism. You're the one that wants to take a male-dominated subject (CS) and use that as the criteria for judging the "success" of women. You're the one that says that if not enough women are in the CS field they are not succesful. Might as well pretend that men and women have no physical differenes, draft a few women athletes into the NBA and then hold them to the standards of Kobe Bryant or Shaq. That's fair, right? Let's just not pay attention to the fact that a slam dunk is something you hardly ever see in the WNBA and it's something you see every night in the NBA. While we're at it, let's see if we can get a few women track stars and suit 'em up for the Superbowl and see how long they survive before being crushed to death. At least we'd be treaing them equally though, right? They'd gasp their last as equals on the field of sports.

At least that's how you might see it. The rest of us would see it as a couple of 300 pound behemeths reducing a few women to pulp in a grossly unfair contest that pitted men in their strenght (bashing each other with sheer weight) against women out of their element.

No one is arguing that women (or men) should be restrained in their "element". I don't think we know what that element is. We don't know what differences there are between men and women exactly. But only ignorant fools pretend their are none. Let women and men do what they like. If there is genuine repression, then we need to stop it. Just as we did when

Summary

[gunpowda]

Looks like finding a compatible girl geek in the computer profession is becoming even harder...

Does it help that the summary itself contains a male-point-of-view sterotype?

Re:Summary

[Anonymous Coward]

(Most) guys like to form relationships with women.. yeah, I guess in politically-correct la-la land, this natural instinct is considered a stereotype. Sheesh.

Gender gaps elsewhere...

[zubernerd]

I've noticed whenever I hear about a gender gap study or story, the gender gap is a about a shortage of women in good, clean professions with upward mobility and high pay. I've never hear or seen a story about a shortage of women in garbage collecting or ditch digging, or other lower pay and often "dead end" jobs. I've only seen one female garbage collector ever, out of dozens of male garbage collectors, in the various places I've lived.

P.S. I have nothing against garbage collectors... they just happen to be the most visible "down and dirty not high paying" job I can think of. They do a great service for us, I'm not putting them down. I would like to see more women going into CS as well. I'm just pointing out something I've noticed.

Re:Gender gaps elsewhere...

[RingDev]

Garbage collectors also get paid pretty well, probrably (depending on municipality) comprably to most custom business software developers.

-Rick

Re:Gender gaps elsewhere...

[rAiNsT0rm]

I'm not sure if you are aware or not but here in PA, A "Waste Engineer" - read garbage man - makes a comparable salary as me... a Network Administrator for a mid-sized bank. They even have better benefits. You'd be surprised at the average garbage man pay, I know I was when a buddy of mine went into the business straight out of High School and is a rich bastard while I have student loans and a stressful job.

Re:Gender gaps elsewhere...

[CastrTroy]

Also, they rarely ever talk about the lack of men in female dominated jobs. Some of these fields are pretty stable, and growing. Think of nursing, daycare, and many other female dominated professions. Maybe it's just that women aren't interested in computers, just like men aren't interested in taking care of children.

Re:Gender gaps elsewhere...

[Red Flayer]

"You don't see a lot of "out of X nurses graduating this year only 2 were men" articles floating about the news..."

That's because the gender gap in nursing is disappearing. It's only news when the gap is increasing.

Re:Gender gaps elsewhere...

[Hektor_Troy]

No, I think part of the problem comes from "OMG HE TOUCHED THE CHILD!!! CHILD MOLESTER!!!" type reactions from certain people. It's so bad in some places, that men can't even take the boys to the bathroom of fear of the repercussions.

Uhhh

[oman_]

Think this might have to do with the fact that after the dot com crash computer science was no longer viewed as the way to ensure a profitable career?

I have met VERY FEW women who actually LIKE programming among the women professionals I've met.

Re:Uhhh

[Zordak]

That point of view is sexist, politically incorrect, and probably absolutely true. All of these "gender gap" studies (in any field) seem to start with the premise that every field of work should have basically a 50/50 gender split. I think that is patently absurd. The differences between men and women extend beyond just plumbing. My personal experience is fewer women enjoy computer science -- not because they're uneducated or incapable, but because they simply prefer to do something else. Should we be trying to force them into a field they don't enjoy just because it conforms to the way we think things should be? I think our loftiest goal should not be to promote a 50/50 gender split at all costs. Nor should it be to exactly match the demographic for any other group. It should be to make the profession available to anybody who cares to pursue it. If that means that only 1/4 to 1/3 of the profession is composed of women, as long as that reflects the actual number of women who wants to do it, there's nothing wrong with that. If we try to artificially inflate the number to 50% just because we arbitrarily decide that's what it should be, we end up with a lot of women in the field who would really rather be doing something else.

Re:Uhhh

[Aranel Alasse]

It [our loftiest goal] should be to make the profession available to anybody who cares to pursue it. If that means that only 1/4 to 1/3 of the profession is composed of women, as long as that reflects the actual number of women who wants to do it, there's nothing wrong with that.

I agree. I'm also glad that my employer attained the lofty goal of making the profession available to me (a female computer programmer).

I know I went to an unusual (and small) college, as far as the ratio of guys to girls is concerned (about half of us CS majors were female), and I often heard that we were an unusual CS department, but it didn't truly phase me until after I graduated and was looking for a job. Finally I came to the realization that I was in the minority, but thankfully, I never suffered because of it. The first place I interviewed at hired me--which I'm very grateful for, but I still think is weird, because I'm the only girl in a department of 14 of us.

Some days, I think to myself, "Wow. If I didn't REALLY like what I do, I'd probably be miserably lonely."

(Other days, I think to myself, "I'm glad I'm the only female, because then I don't have to compete with anyone."--And I'm NOT talking about competing for the guys (I'd never date/marry anyone I work with), I'm talking about competing with any other girls in the sense of annoying competitions regarding appearances and other sorts of materialism. It's very freeing, sometimes, to be the only girl.)

I think one of the things I really liked about my college was that I didn't feel like I had to be a geek/nerd (take your pick) in order to be a CS major (although, I felt like I could be, if I wanted to be). I think (but I'm not sure, since I'm just speculating) that I would have felt more pressure to be geek/nerd-ish if I had gone to a bigger, more gender-lopsided school.

I think it mostly comes down to personality type (I'm an INTP personality type), and perhaps girls are less inclined to be of the personality type that enjoys things like programming.

Oh well. *shrug* I just enjoy doing what I do. And I'm glad my employer is ok with the fact that I'm a girl.

Re:Uhhh

[PureCreditor]

Affirmative action is just the same way to artificially inflate different demographics to pursue a 100% match between student population and general population, regardless of the qualifications.

Look at UC Berkeley's admission stats. Once affirmative action was struck down, percentage of whites stayed just about constant, blacks went sharply down, and Asians shot up, indicating that that gap of Asians (or any other group) has been artificially suppressed in the name of affirmative action and anti-discrimination.

And there's no such thing as over-represented minority. If asians represent 20% of the best talent pool, then let their performance and achievement speak for themselves, not their ethnicity.

Re:Uhhh

[CAIMLAS]

Don't let anyone tell you otherwise: the people (women and stupid men, mostly) that bitch about "gender gap" do not want equality.

If they wanted equality, you'd see studies like this done about fields like plumbing, carpentry, construction, and other "unskilled" jobs. You don't see this kind of thing about a (technical) field like massage thearapy or salon duties (both of which pay pretty well) - because women already have the majority in fields like that. What the bitches that trump stuff like this really want is to trump men financially - to "wear the pants", if you will - and their behavior shows it. Women like this are simply bitter hags that have a bone to pick - and likely a full skeleton of bones in the closet.

Stinky-pants

[visionsofmcskill]

Maybe the thought of an exciting career working closely with balding, over-weight, potato-chip eating, diet dr pibb drinking, socially inept, 12 hour funk from working without moving, and red-stapler asking, porn addicted 90 pound eye-glass wearing (weird foreign accent too?) wimplings isnt exactly the ideal or "cool" environment with mass appeal to the females.

Im sure there's always that 19% whose intrests in computer science balenced with their ability to tele-commute are powerfull enough to overcome any obstacle. Even being harassed into wearing their hair like Leia.

--not that programmers are ALL like the above, but its a pretty tough image to beat, mainly because theres is a substantial segment of programmers who do unfortunately fit the bill.

Re:Stinky-pants

[Rary]

In my experience, what you just described is actually the minority of cases in professional IT. The guys who fit that description are largely the basement-dwelling 1337 h4x0rz, whereas the guys who actually find employment in industry tend to (have to) have social skills.

Don't forget that thanks to the dot-com boom, working in IT became fashionable, so that everyone from all walks of life wanted to get in on it. As a result, the old school computer nerds now work side by side with the jocks who beat them up in high school.

Women are more sensitive to guys

[ackthpt]

The smell impending doom of the tech job market and flee to other fields.

You can tell, you know. You can tell because they don't have caved in foreheads from beating them on the wall everytime someone takes a techy for granted.

"hey, I know it's 10 minutes before 5 and it's a friday before christmas, but could you do this urgent pile of work while the rest of us bugger off to our last minute shopping and holiday parties? i knew i could count on you. there'll be a little something extra in your pay packet this month (a candy cane)"

CS-related fields booming

[datawar]

There's still plenty of girls graduating in fields around computer science: communication majors going into human-computer interaction, science & technology studies majors studying the social impact of computing, etc. Information science and other "not-just-techie" graduate fields around the country are around 50/50 by gender. These girls may not care about programming the "best" distributed computing platform ever, but you can be sure they know more about what one means in society than the majority of techies.

MRS Degree

[99BottlesOfBeerInMyF]

So they are more likely to be dissuaded from pursuing computer science if they are exposed to an unpleasant environment, bad teaching, and negative stereotypes like the image of the male hacker.'

I don't know if the number is statistically significant, but from my own anecdotal experience I know a number of women who went into CS because of the gender difference and because they were more interested in finding a financially stable husband than in learning about computer science. I know several women who became engaged and/or married and then switched degrees or dropped out. I imagine the same is true, in reverse, for certain fields dominated by women. I know at least one guy who joined the cheerleading squad to meet women.

Re:You don't need to meet a cs girl

[RatPh!nk]

Seriously good idea. Everyone wins. Too bad more people can't take it seriously.... Fanning the flames of the rat race to get a job so you can afford to put your kids in daycare is one of the silliest logical exercises I have ever seen people engage in.

Or maybe...

[Arthur B.]

... we could accept that men and women are different in nature, very different and that men perform better on technical skills than women, period. It's called specialization, it goes back to the beginning of life and there's nothing sexist to it. The social pressure justification seems a little far fetched, for the sake of correctness. Women perform much better than men in a wide variety of intellectual activities, I'm not implying any kind of superiority, I am just saying the obvious. P.S. Counter-example are pointless because this is of course a general trend and applies on average.

Re:Or maybe...

[datawar]

It's both sexist and constraining to what it means to be a "computer scientist". You can't just break CS down to "manly" and "girly" parts because it is huge field with an incredible variety of things you can do. You don't even have to know how to program to be in a CS program (thought it's uncommon) -- you can be a theorist. Or you can be Anyway, there's so much to computer science that's it's just ridiculous to think it's something "masculine" or "feminine".

Few things

[AutopsyReport]

So they are more likely to be dissuaded from pursuing computer science if they are exposed to an unpleasant environment, bad teaching, and negative stereotypes like the image of the male hacker.

What makes you think that women (and men) entering other disciplines don't face the same environments? How is a woman entering Computer Science any different from a man entering Women's Studies? The irrelevant stereotype of the male hacker, bad teaching, has absolutely no correlation with the lack of women entering computer science because this is true for every single discipline known.

For some real experience, in my fourth year of my CS degree, there is all of two women that are graduating. Yes, two women, out of a hundred guys or so. But I don't attribute that to what this article purports is the cause -- no, I think at some point women make decisions for themselves and realize they aren't interested in computer science. I think this theory of mine is called 'common-sense'.

MMmppphhh

[NitsujTPU]

Not to sound like a jerk, but lets throw it down like this.

I'm a fairly successful person (so far), in computer science.

People graduating from my current institution can expect to make about $70k a year with a Masters. A high number of people in engineering here leave to do something other than engineering, when they discover that they will be paid more in other fields (a friend of mine who is becoming a banker will start at $120K/year.

So, while there is a gender gap, one has to ask if telling women to go into computer science will be at all good for their careers. Certainly a certain percentage of all people would like to go into computer science, out of a genuine love for the field. I fall into this group. I hope that all women who fall into this group, do so. I would advocate, however, that we stop trying to push our kids into this field out of a perception that it will somehow make them successful.

Lets break down the facts. Even in the dot-com boom, the jobs that paid the most did not require degrees in computer science. It doesn't take a thick book of credentials to become a web hacker. Go to a web shop, and ask the people working there what their credentials are.

Now, go to any business, and ask their IT people what their credentials are.

There are a lot more of those people, and they only get paid marginally less than programmers. The programmers are in a very very tough job market, so mostly only good ones get jobs programming anywhere (though, there are notable exceptions, of course), and they're overqualified for networking.

As a programmer, without a masters, I made $40k a year. Does it sound like your daughter couldn't make more with a degree in marketing or accounting?

Now that we've got that one solved, you have to ask if pushing kids into the field is a good idea. Only a few of them actually like it, to the rest, even a bachelors is a hellish workload in a field that they dislike. Go ask your marketing student how many all nighters they pull a week. In the atrium here, students write things like "Why don't they let me sleep!!" on the whiteboards... and those are the undergrads, us grads are off in our offices or labs.

So, fine... perhaps we need to make sure that the women who want to be here get here. I am a hearty, strong advocate of THAT, but before you send your daughter off to some brainwashing session that says that she needs to become an engineer, remember that it's a person with an MBA who will be her boss, not someone with a degree in engineering.

So what?

[cmorriss]

This is ridiculous. Yes, 75% of people in computer science are men. So what? What percentage of teachers are women? What percentage or care takers are women? I don't hear people screaming of a gender gap in those or other professions where men are less inclined to have careers.

Let's face it. Women are different and in general not as interested in the science of computers. Note, that I'm not talking about all women, but simply a greater percentage than men. It's reality. Let it go instead of forcing some women into a field in which they're not comfortable just so we can feel better about some meaningless percentages.

Women out of the kitchen and into the lab

[mclaincausey]

Caveat: the following comes with a massive grain of salt, as it is speculation and generalization:

I was thinking about the dearth of women in science just the other day. I think, as has already been concluded and probably supported, that the difference stems at least in part from the fact that women from a very early age are treated differently. This treatment includes not just how they are treated in the classroom, it also includes what is expected of them. Boys get mechanical toys, erector sets, legos, and other toys that encourage engineering and scientific tendencies. Girls get dolls and other toys that encourage maternal and domestic tendencies. It could certainly be looked at as a chicken-and-egg argument, but perhaps we could start to remedy this phenomenon by encouraging women to build and experiment at a younger age.

It's also evident that girls and boys emulate the people around them, so a more stimulating, interactive and intellectual environment at home could be a boon for either gender.

A Bigger Tragedy

[nate nice]

Is that there is a decline in men enrolling in Women's Studies degrees.

The point is, often girls like certain thing and boys like certain things. It has nothing to do with a social standard or any other kind of garbage these people make up to get grants. It has to do with the same reason more men are found roaming around best buy looking at electronics than girls.

Why do we constantly have this mission from some groups to force 50-50 on everything? Why is it that we have to take natural patterns out and force things on people. So now what, if a girl wants to study CS they make it free to encourage more girls to do it? Who cares who studies it! Race and sex don't matter!

On these same grounds have you seen any studies advocating to get more boys in school? The numbers are going way down for males while females continues to rise. Why don't we see a coalition focused on getting boys into colleges. Especially white boys who are showing the sharpest decline in enrollment?

Sure I'm going overboard here but my point is this: It's not a *problem* that fewer girls are going into CS. It's a fact. And that's all it is. They make guesses as to why and this is fine but do not try and manipulate things and make them unfair for everyone else to strike some unnatural balance. To me, it's irrelevant if fewer girls are going into engineering and CS programs.

A female perspective

[Hannah E. Davis]

One thing that I'd like to know is why there seem to be quite strong racial elements to the gender gap as well. I'm in Computer Science at UBC, and there are a lot of girls in my classes... but at least 90% of them are Chinese. It seems that among the Asian students, there's barely any gender gap, but female students of other races (eg. myself -- a white girl of British descent) are much more rare.

The reason I'm asking this is that the Chinese (and the inhabitants of at least a few of the other East Asian countries) seem to have figured out something that us Westerners haven't. The only explanation that I can think of is that the Chinese (at least appear to) obsess less over what gender dominates what field.

I don't know about other girls, but I get kinda irritated when people, be they men or women, exclaim "Good for you!" or "You go girl!" when I mention my major, as if I'm overcoming some incredible hardship by just -- get this -- interacting to guys and *gasp* doing my coursework without female encouragement!

I also get sick of people going on and on about how comp sci is desperately lacking in women and it's masculine and discrimination is rampant and hard for girls to get into and blah blah blah... and then they wonder why the hell girls are being driven away from the subject "despite" all that advertising. I mean, seriously: do you think you could get more men into nursing by saying something like "Nursing: not just for girls anymore! Not girly at all! You won't be laughed at for doing it! Trust us!"? So why does anyone think that strategy would work on women?

Oh, and incidentally, as a 3rd year student, I have never been harassed, excluded or otherwise treated in a negative manner based on my gender. I have never felt that I was intruding into any kind of boys-only club, and I have never found myself wishing that I had more female friends to talk to. Oh, and my grades are pretty decent too (with the notable exception of math, but I've always been weak in that area).

Re:A female perspective

[NitsujTPU]

You rock.

I think that the a big element of this is the era that we're from is a different era (I'm a male grad student at the moment).

One of my advisors that I have been fortuate to work quite closely with feels that women arediscriminated against. I have to wonder how much of the difference, however, is the difference in experience between our generation and her generation (not quite 20 years difference).

Re:A female perspective

[Hannah E. Davis]

I'd rather see programs that reach out to kids in general, not just girls. Maybe I'm just weird, but the only time that I feel discriminated against is when somebody assumes that just because I have a vagina, I need some kind of special treatment and I can't possibly succeed on my own. It's like... "Oh, you're just a girl. Don't worry, I understand that you can't do that hard math! Here, you can do an easy course instead!"

My highschool actually tried to set up an all-girls programming class one year. I doubt any girls signed up. The whole concept was incredibly sexist and smacked of segregation -- the implication was that us poor stupid little girls just couldn't handle having big smart intimidating boys around, and that we needed extra time and attention if we were ever to learn the terribly difficult concepts involved in programming "Hello World" in Pascal.

If people want to reach out to girls, they need to reach out to boys too. You can't teach people about equality by treating either gender as if it needs special attention.

Oh, and incidentally, I do hate math, I just don't think it would be fair for the powers that be to allow me to do softer courses because of my gender. I'd rather suffer through calculus, possibly even failing it (which is quite likely given how unprepared I am for my final tomorrow morning), than do a bird course and graduate with a degree that is somehow less valid than that of a male student.

Re:A female perspective

[Monkelectric]

In the most base terms programming is applied mathmatics, however, the best programmers aren't great at math because programming is a *LINGUISTIC* exercise. People who can think structurally and algorithmically while still being creative are the ones who really go on to be the best programmers.

So anyways, survive calculus somehow and you'll probably go on to be a great programmer. If you aced calculus Id tell you to look for another profession.

Re:A female perspective

[matthaak]

It's just the way Western societies have been largely static for centuries now... Rapid technological progress and the careers associated with it is a new phenomenon, and the Western mind hasn't really adjusted...

China may be advancing on the US, but only economically, and not because it is somehow more willing to embrace science and technology. Even if science and technology were the issue, how exactly can one look at the last few centuries of Western scientific progress and changes in daily life and say that it has been "largely static"?!

Chinese people are very much in tune with what is practical for getting ahead, both as a country and individually... A society which respects litigation and playing the stock market more than science and technology won't stay ahead too long.

I agree the Chinese may be more practical about getting ahead and that this could be the reason China is advancing its economy as it is. But Americans have their reasons for being impractical. We so deeply cherish our legal system and stock markets because these institutions preserve and promote individual rights and freedoms, which we see as more important than anything else.

The Chinese conception of individuality - rooted partly in Confucianism, as you noted - does not place the same premium on personal rights and freedoms as the Cartesian conception. An interesting argument could even be made that the Confucian conception may prove in a global economy to be the more practical of the two. And an even more interesting argument could be made that the Confucian conception is inherently more gender-neutral than the Cartesian.

These issues have nothing to with decade-long trends in science and technology, though. They are fundamental values that will differentiate our great societies for many centuries to come.

You know...

[Pantero Blanco]

If someone avoids the field for idiotic and childish reasons likes the ones other posters are suggesting, the field doesn't need them. CS doesn't need people who are in it primarily for money instead of for the love of what they do, or who'll back off of it because "their coworkers are weird".

One poster in a previous story about this said that a female friend had told him she wouldn't take CS classes because "the room smelled bad". Do you really think she was interested and would've made a contribution to science if something that little could push her away?

Re:As a geek girl...

[Total_Wimp]

As a geek girl myself, I'd put it a bit above half. sucks.

So how many, after you politely say no, persist in their pursute? I can understand why a woman would be upset by persistant unwanted attention, but I've never understood why women so often are upset by unwanted attention that goes away as soon as a negative answer is given.

Yeah, the guy is creepy/ugly/smelly/whatever. But what on earth is wrong with him asking, "will you go out with me," even if he does so ineptly while looking at his shoes the whole time? Unless women want to turn things around so they do all the asking, they're going to have to put up with saying "no" evey now and then to someone they don't like. They should get a grip and not act like it's their right to not be asked in the first place.

Put another way, if a good woman wants to get the attention of a good man, why would she be surprised when every one else pays attention to her as well?

TW

Re:Thoughts of a guy on seeing a girl in his CS cl

[andyatkinson]

I think you should double check your order of evaluation. You have the hair-slicking and armpit-detoxing before the girl notices you. Now don't get me wrong, there are Computer Science kids that talk to themselves, mumbling something about WoW, big O notation, or whatever, but most would wait until g.noticesYou() is true before entering the loop. Hopefully most would know when to break the loop, but that is another story.

Another relevant comment in a geek trade rag ...

[SABME]

The most recent issue of the IEEE newsletter ran a story about the gender gap in engineering schools, and I thought the writer hit the nail on the head with this observation (paraphrased from my memory of the original):

Besides the social stigma, why should a female seek to start a program of intense and difficult study to be rewarded with a career that offers long hours, stressful situations, and uncertain prospects for steady employment?

Re:Chauvinist response -- but maybe true

[paulbd]

I'm a guy. I'm a software engineer. I left the business for a lot more than 1-2 years so that I could raise my daughter. I'm back in the business, and I have people falling over themselves to hire me. Google call? check. Microsoft? check. various startups in the valley, even though i live in philadelphia? check.

the difference? once my daughter was in preschool, i got pretty serious about writing pro-audio software for linux, and giving it away. result? a couple of paid trips each year to europe to talk about my work, the respect of geek hackers everywhere and hopefully soon some real cash from various companies who want to use my work.

What does my case prove? Nothing, other than that having children has no particular meaning for a person's ability to continue functioning as a productive, skilled software engineer. It might be involved in that process for some people, and some of them might be male, or female (and in this age, perhaps even both at the same time).

And yeah, ok, so I made a million or two from being the #2 hire at amazon.com, but that has little do to with the story :)

Re:Why most geeks are male

[Kris_B_04]

I've been programming since high school (86-87).
I am
1. Not overweight. (120 pounds)
2. Not ugly. http://www.heartlandsi.com/HeartlandServices/IT.as px (yes, the only girl here though)
3. Not bi or lesbian (although the way men are, I have certainly considered going the other way, especially after dumping my last boyfriend -- in October)
4. Definitely not transgendered

Okay, so, am I a geek then? I call myself a geek cuz I would prefer to be in front of a computer than at some party somewhere. I do okay in social situations, but I do not enjoy them.

Yeah, I was not popular in school, but I didn't turn to computers, I turned to books. Computers weren't available to me until the middle 80's and even then, my favorite escape was a good fantasy Sci/Fi book. (aha! Another Geeky thing! I suppose I shouldn't mention that I never missed a Doctor Who episode while I was young?)

A few years ago, I just finished updating myself by getting a a second degree from Devry Online. There were a LOT of females in the online environment. There were at least 5 in every class and most classes had about 10 people.

I love my job. I love programming.

It's really sad that we females have to be stuck into a stereo type just to be good at something that is normally reserved for Geeks. In fact, I would have to say that I have met few "Geeks" as defined by Caspian, I have met many handsome, interesting, fun and exciting men who are in the computer field.

So, you don't want anecdotal evidence to the contrary. Why? Do you feel the need to justify yourself and your loneliness and don't want anyone to argue with you? What makes you the expert on the females in this field? Just because you don't happen to be someplace that is open to hiring females and to giving them a chance in what is still considered "a non-traditional" field for females?

I am not a feminist. I just happen to be happy what I'm doing. Programming. I did not go into this field because there are so few women. I did it because I enjoy it. I was always really good at it and loved the challenges that came from something that changes nearly every day.

I'm me, and I resent this and many of the other comments within this discussion.

Thanks for listening,
Kris (That girl in IT)

PS
I just gave up my moderation of this discussion to post this.

Even self-hating geeks will get pussy someday

[mathmathrevolution]

Man, there sure are a lot of self-hating Geeks on Slashdot. Anytime the subject of "that other 50% of the population" comes up, there's invariably +5 modded comments about how pathetic all the Geeks are. If you guys spent the time you spend on slashdot beefing up your skills with women and exercising, you'd probably find some chick. Fact of the matter is: women over the age of 25, are desperate for intelligent, nice, financially stable men. Younger than that, women are still looking for traditional masculine stereotypes. If you're young, you may need to hold out for a little while. Sorry. In the mean time, you can 'comfort' yourself with the fact that men are declining in every subject other than computer science. This is leading to an over educated female population. And when these women move from college girls to yuppies, they're going to realize they want somebody more intelligent, less volatile, and more succesful. And when they don't find any of those guys, they're going to settle for you.

Re:Mod parent insightful

[TheLink]

Personally I think people are making a big fuss over the wrong thing. If someone is really interested in something they won't get discouraged that easily.

I'm not in the US, but from what I hear it seems that in the US, it's common for male geeks/nerds to get discriminated against in high school (even physical abuse). But they still go do geeky stuff anyway.

Still, if this is true, it's not a good culture to have. Over here if you're a member of the chess club, or computer club it's not something you'd need to hide from anyone. People who do well in exams/tests don't get picked on negatively etc.

Avoiding a "loser" culture is important, since nowadays one has to be competitive with the rest of the world. Not just the rest of the class.

Nowadays the barriers of entry to the IT world are much lower. Computers and internet connections are much cheaper nowadays. Even if you don't have a formal CS or IT degree, if you're good enough you can prove it. I doubt most developers in the OSS projects care whether you're male or female.

But similarly that means a programming or CS-related job is easier to send to another country than a nursing job.

So it may be a smart move by girls to avoid Computer Science!

Stop obsessing.

[tnk1]

Everytime I see a story like this, the question is answered before the end of the article.

Why aren't there more women in CS? Because they don't want to be in it. The question we may want to be asking ourselves is why we obsess about it. Yes, I know that we're all look for some way we can look "inward" and try and correct our "gender bias". That MUST be the only reason women don't want to be in this business. Just like I don't want to be a nurse because it's a "female" job. It has zero to do with low pay, long hours and changing bedpans. Nope. Not at all.

The reason for women not being in CS is because of the pay, hours, and the social issues. It is, perhaps, possible that we could change the social issues by some introspection, but the question is: why bother? If we're doing it to gain a "female perspective" on programming, then the fact is that any benefit from that is going to be found and cause a change by itself. A change, I might add that would have little or none of the downside of being an "affirmative action" situation. Which is to say people with talent being looked down upon, and people with no talent looking for an easy ride. If there is a benefit to having women in CS because they are women, then someone is going to realize it and capitalize on it and when they are successful, others will follow suit or be left behind.

If there are active harassment situations and artificial barriers to females who actually really like programming and want to be CS people, then that needs to be dealt with. But if we just want females because we think it's a good idea, then perhaps it isn't such a grand idea, especially if you have to prod females towards it with juicy incentives unrelated to a natural interest for CS. Never develop a program based on a nebulous concept about what has value without being able to demonstrate that value.

Re:Why most geeks are male

[Kris_B_04]

My job definition is programmer.

I LOVE Macs and plan on owning one again soon...
I also am dying to learn Linux...
sadly, though, I am one of those "underpaid" programmers. We are a small company though...

And my IT manager is a geek. He used to be just a network admin who happened to be at the right place at the right time. He is a good person, though, and I really enjoy working with him.

Exciting, well, depends on what excites you, I suppose. Learning new stuff, finding new exciting programming tools, that excites me. :) I can find a lot of people in the programming / IT world that still knows more than me, and I love learning new stuff!

As for well-adjusted, you are right, few IT people like Social Situations. The rest of our company don't understand us and we are all classified as "Weird", I just happen to be a weird female. I was a novelty at first, but now I'm weird just like everyone else. *grin*

Kris

Re:As a geek girl...

[guaigean]

Speaking as a boss myself, if I knew someone was told "no" and they persisted, I'd have no problem showing him the door.

There's a big difference between persistence, and crossing the line to pyschopathic behavior. Persistence can pay off, so long as it involves a respectful interaction between the participants. More than one marriage has formed after the guy being turned down first, but often we geeks lack the social skills to notice the difference between a "Get the hell away from me you creepy smelly dork!" and "I'm saying no, but I just want to see how much you like me." Don't try this at home (or work) if you aren't fully aware of the difference.

Re:Good!

[mrtroy]

On a serious note, How are so many girls getting out of the kitchen? And maintaining jobs while pregnant? And getting jobs while barefoot?(haha)

Consider that 50 years ago, women were second class citizens. That is less than a generation ago.
So lets stop wondering why there aren't many women in CS, and lets start looking at the big picture, things have drastically changed in society. Of course there will never be "equality", because of people's interests in careers. I bet there aren't nearly as many men in certain positions because of personal preference too.

boys vs girls

[Starbreeze]

These types of articles only seem to fuel the boys vs girls attitude here.

I'm the only white chick on this whole floor in anything remotely technology related. I was the only girl at all in my 2000 graduating class to get a Bachelors of Science in CS or CIS. So what? Yes, some men get defensive about my presence, others couldn't give a rats ass what gender I am as long as I make shit work. That's life. I guess you just accept it, adapt, and try to grow a thicker skin.

Re:What is essentialism?

[Arthur B.]

The point is not here. The absence of women in CS and analytical fields it a fact. If you don't agree on that stop reading. I am offering the most simple explanation. I fully realize it might not be the only explanation, and it being simple does not make it true, but at least it is still a good theory -it's easily refutable -it provides a good explanation of the observed phenomena -it doesn't contradict other verified theories

Re:Unlocking the Clubhouse

[Kris_B_04]

You sound awfully bitter...

I don't feel the same, and I've been programming off and on since 86-87. I am now a full-time programmer and loving it!

I took classes to update my knowledge base a couple years ago, through Devry Online and many times at least half of the classes were females!

There is hope!! :) Maybe the online world will make a difference!!

Kris
(That girl in IT)

Common sense is right here in front of you

[Chris Burke]

That's your common sense theory?

My "common-sense" theory is based on reading the comments by male CS students/professionals in this thread, the number saying women don't want to be in computers, that gender differences mean women won't be as good in computers, that the gender gap is natural like evolution, and of course it has nothing to do with men discouraging women from entering computer fields.

So right here on the pages of /., we have both 1) CS males denying the theory of causation in the article and 2) doing exactly what the article says.

What does common sense say about that? "Of course women aren't being discouraged from the field of CS by men, just that I as a male in CS think women can't do the job as well and don't want to do the job -- of course it's just their own choice when they drop out".

My real experience is that the number of women in introductory classes started high, and halved every semester until you were lucky if there was one women, even more lucky two, in a graduate course. From working with and grading the papers of these student or meeting them in office hours, I saw every bit of evidence I need to see that women are just as capable and just as motivated to study CS as men. No, I can't look into their heads and know why they left the program, but certainly a few have told me flat out that they are discouraged by the lack of role models. Which pisses me off, because I know we've lost some excellent minds.

As far as every other profession -- they have had exactly this problem! Women in medicine? Today a woman doctor isn't unusual at all, but it certainly was thirty years ago! Women had to break into the field and prove their worthiness to be a doctor instead of a nurse. Once there were prominent women doctors, and women teaching in medical schools, and the stereotypes that discouraged women were torn down, then yes you started to see more women join.

It has always been this way, whenever a new group starts to compete for jobs with the established. Whether that was European immigrants, freed slaves, or women after WWII, those who had previously had exclusive rights to some field believed they were entitled to those fields and the others would be inherently inferior, and only after time and great effort were these situations changed.

Common sense says that CS and IT and engineering are no different than any other field, and the stubborn refusal of men to accept women is both the cause of the continuing discrepancy, and a dinosaur of the last century.

Rational Choice

[Ancil]

Here come a thousand theories regarding which external factors are driving women away from careers in computer science, physics, biochemistry, and similar "slide-rule jobs".

Allow me to submit one explanation which is based on economics rather than blind emotion:

Women are less likely to pursue a career in Computer Science because of rational self-interest, and not due to external factors.

That being the case, there is no "fix" needed, because nothing is "broken". To the extent that we are already encouraging women to enter the "hard" sciences through preferences and affirmative action, we are doing those women a disservice.

The elephant standing in the corner which no on wants to mention is childbirth. Women are far more likely than men to desire an extended leave of absence from their field -- think five or ten years.

Let's try to list some careers which you can set aside for the better part of a decade, then re-enter without too much trouble and without taking a huge hit in earnings. Here are a few off the top of my head: teacher, nurse, receptionist, administrative assistant.

How about some careers where the techonology moves so fast that taking five or ten years off means you basically have to start over at square one: computer programmer, electrical engineer, CEO, neurosurgeon.

Anyone noticing a pattern here? Feminists talk a lot about giving women "choices", but wow do they ever get upset when those women make choices they don't like! In that whole four-page article, not once was it suggested that perhaps Computer Science is not actually a college major which fits with many womens' long-term goals. Goals which include childrearing and taking an extended leave of absence from their career.

Re:As a geek girl...

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't think it actually works that way. I know lots of girls who hooked up with their male friends, and really, it's the best way to go if you're looking for a strong relationship. Of course, you also run the risk of ruining a riendship that way.

Re:As a geek girl...

[theStorminMormon]

Blanket statements suck

Hmm... I'm not sure if that's a tautology, a contradiction, or just plain irony.

I really don't mean to be harsh but I can't state emphatically enough how many things are wrong with this position.

Men are taller than women. It's just a fact that, as a group, guys are. It does no good to say whether or not this generalization sucks. That's like saying that it sucks that 2+2=4. Whether or not it sucks it's just the way it is.

So we have two options of handling these kinds of differences. If we think that differences are bad and scary and inequitable then we can shout as loud as we want and pretend they don't exist. We can pretend that guys are not actually stronger then girls, or that girls aren't socially smarter than men. We can obfuscate, complain, and trash anyone who makes the mistake of pointing the obvious out. But this is at best living in la-la land and at worst dangerous. When we have to lower standards so that we can hire enough women firefighters I think we've just gone to far. As my mum said (in reference to rules changes that said instead of a fireman's carry dragging a victim down the stairs was sufficient to become a firemen) "Who are these stupid feminists? I don't want some 5'2" woman dragging me out of the building, I want a 6'2" giant to carry me out!"

Sure, some men are 5'2". And there are some women who are 6'2". But how many of either do you know? And how many women do you know that are 5'2"? Or men that are 6'2"?

Look, the reason I say "I don't want to be harsh" is that I understand what it is that you don't like. You don't like it when people use a generalization to apply it unfairly to an individual. That's discrimination - and in many cases it's mean, evil, wrong, etc. But trying to make discrimination go away by trying to outlaw generalizations is like trying to make electrocution go away by outlawing electricity. It would be stupid to try and in the real world it's not possible anyway.

-stormin

Re:As a geek girl...

[bleckywelcky]

By "great friends", do you mean listen to you whenever you have something to complain about, bend their schedule around to do things with you, give up their saturday afternoon spent recompiling kernels to have lunch with you, and pay for more than 50% of the stuff along the way? Good friends ... right, they're still hoping for something and getting used along the way :\

Re:As a geek girl...

[Polyhymnia999]

I agree completely. As a grrl geek myself, I have a strong geeky circle of friends, male and female. Since they came to realize (after a few years and a few reminders) that we are neither alien nor predator, we're all having a lot more fun AND being a lot more productive. Nothing like getting good beta feedback from someone who literally experiences the world from a different perspective, and can communicate in technical terms. We even celebrated a few geek mergers and the birth of a couple of MiniGeeks this year.

Re:As a geek girl...

[Anonymous Coward]

I am afraid you are missing the point. Your intent is immaterial; only her interpretation is important. The fact that you were trying to be friendly counts for nothing if she chooses to interpret that you are doing something else. Rember, "No means No, when and if I want it to".

Re:As a geek girl...

[theStorminMormon]

Woohoo a nomination.

Just for clarification, what exactly are you angry about?

Are you angry that I think girls are socially smarter than men, or that I think it's clearly proven? If the latter, then your anger is misplaced. I don't think it's clearly proven, just believe it to be true and generally (not universally) accepted. If you're angry that I think that, well, that can't be helped.

But lest you think that I'm just pulling stuff out of my ass to annoy you, here's an article for your reading pleasure. It presents a logical argument, based in evolutionary psychology, for my conclusion that as a group women are socially smarter then men. I didn't say proof: "socially smart" is a lot harder to measure than "physically strong", but I don't want you to leave with your impression that I'm just disguising my opinion as accepted scientific fact.

Chris Crawford, Women in Games: http://www.escapistmagazine.com/issue/17/3 [Escapist Magazine]

As for the inherent contradictions in posting the most subtle and simultaneously stupid posts you've come across, I'll just chalk that up to your clearly highly emotional state.

Please tell me one thing, however. You say "it works", but I'm not sure what you mean. What do you take my objective to be? If I'm trolling, then I would want a flamewar not a+5 moderation. Do you think I'm just out for the mod points? I guess I can't convince you that I don't care about those, but I'm really not sure why you're so riled or what you think my insidious scheme really achieved.

-stormin

Re:As a geek girl...

[Prune]

There's a good bit of truth to that site, but too much simplification and generalization, as well as some bias suggesting that he hasn't slept with that many women. One implication is that if you don't possess the money/status/looks you don't have a chance. The fact is that you can make up with all those things by personality/behavior -- which is something that can be faked until you learn to do it really well. I speak from experience, as I'm a regular looking guy that is, by the fact of posting on Slashdot, a geek. I used to be shy and never approach women, but then I met the right people to teach me and now I've been with more good-looking women than I could have previously thought possible. The fact is, a man's behavior speaks tons to a woman's subconscious, and it's much easier to modify than looks and riches. The trick is finding the right advice, and being persistent with practice until you get it working and becomes a second nature. I'm surprised more geeks haven't figured this out, given their brain power resource, and getting laid more, enriching the gene pool with their 'smart genes'.
There has been a recently published book that looks into actual organizations of people that study and discuss how to get women. It's worth looking into, though I would take everything in it with a grain of salt; I know personally people that use such methods, but I don't think it's the best way to go at it. It's too convoluted and, er, sneaky; what I'm talking about is learning to behave like the guys that are naturally good at this.

Re:As a geek girl...

[Anonymous Coward]

I never received a job through "networking", I got them by flooding the market with my resume until I get a job interview and then quietly explaining that they should hire me because I'm the best bloody programmer they're likely to find in a very long time.

Ok, other than that should between start & end "MASSIVE-EGO" html tags, I will tell you that I left my job of 14 years for a little .com, where my boss really *liked* me, in fact my interview I didn't say "I'm the best", he asked a few specific questions I didn't know the answer to, but I knew the concepts and I knew where to look and I guess came across that I could learn anything... I eventually left because I was working 80 hours a week and had no life, not because I didn't enjoy the work, it was very challenging, I liked the job, I liked the people, I just had no life... I had talked to some people back at the old job, and that boss knew what I was capable of, and created a position to hire me back...

And then after he retired, they brought in a new boss, who didn't like me, I knew the writing was on the wall and started looking... the boss from the .com had since moved someplace else, I was talking to him and he wrangled a position for me there where I'm pretty well respected now. I still have contacts at other places from the old jobs, if I was looking again I certainly would contact other people and at least let them know I was "in the market".

I'm not neccesarily saying that I wouldn't also be getting my resume out there and looking, but I would wonder about anyone that bills themself as "the best damn programmer you'll ever find", because truthfully if someone said that to *me* in an interview, I wouldn't hire them. I have an old friend who was looking for a job, we had an opening, I said "they're really good" (and they are), and my boss's reply was "if you say so, they're hired". He'd never met them, but he respected me, so he respected my opinion (and they've worked out really well).

If I was out interviewing, would I be saying "I'm great!" which is what you seem to be playing, no... I'd be saying "I'm well rounded, I have 20 years at this, a lot of skills, and I can pick up new things really well." But then again, I also have the concept that an interview is as much for me to learn about them as it is for them to talk to me. I interviewed at once place while 'looking' to leave that .com, I walked in the door and met the person that would be my 'manager', I thought "pretty stuck up", I met their boss - the director - who showed me the 20x20 room with 40 'consultants' crammed into it (I would have been a real employee) - and after 15 minutes thought "real bastard", and then I met the VP of IT, who gave me a 45 minute spiel about how wonderful he was, and the great job he was doing, and I thought "stuck up a**hole"... and 2 days later they offered me like $10K more than the .com, and I said I had a few more interviews lined up so I wasnt going to decide for another week or so, and a couple days later they called and said "we can increase the offer!", and I said I still had another interview to go on, and two days after that they were practically begging me to name my price and come work for them. I didn't. I'd rather work someplace where I'd be happy, than be someplace working for bosses that would make me miserable but making more money.

Do I have experience? yes. Am I good at what I do? I think so, yes, and I've proved it to my bosses over time, by doing good work. Would I bill myself in an interview as "the best in the world"? god no. I have 20 years of experience, I like learning, and I'm willing to jump in and do what it takes. I'll let them decide how good they think I am. Having done interviews, if you walked in with that "I'm the best you'll ever find" attitude, I'd probably walk you out the door 15 minutes later.

Re:We don't give rights. Women have them.

[theStorminMormon]

1. The idea the women never need men to give them rights because they already have them is silly. If women already have their rights, no changes need to be made. But the genuine "I can vote if I want to" vs. the hypothetical "I am equal to males inalienably" requires those in political power to change the system. Thus in extremely patriarchal societies (Taliban) it does require either outside force (male or female) or changes in the male-dominated ruling class to level the playing field. This isn't sexist, it's real life. It's not as though women could vote to give themselves the right to vote - this was a bill voted on in Congress by men.

2. If we already have all those rights inalienably - why are you bothering to debate? Doesn't this imply that nothing needs to be changed? You're contradicting yourself because you fail to distinguish between theory and reality.

3. Your physiological arguments are all essentially meaningless unless we're talking about a "rib-having contest" or a "chromosome-having contest" (e.g., a woman as tall and as conditioned as Bryant or O'neal could go dunk for dunk in the NBA, pitting lithe track stars against line-backers is ludicrous, wouldn't you pit similarly sized and conditioned female linebackers against male linebackers?

What world do you live in? Do you think that gender is just some binary on/off switch? Like people are born and the only difference is an X or a Y chromosome? As if that's just some label that has no further implications other than "this one is called 'girl', this one is called 'boy'"? There are evolutionary differences between males and females because they are specialized for different tasks. Your point about a girl as tall as Bryant or O'neal is ludicrous and only shows how far removed you are from reality. In the first place there aren't that many women who have the height of Bryant or O'Neal. Otherwise the WNBA would be full of them. This isn't rocket science, dude, just watch ESPN. Women ARE shorter than men on average. In the second place you're flat out WRONG to say that if you got a woman of that height you could train her to be just as athletic. Seriously dude, what planet do you live on? Women have less body muscle and can not put on as much muscle as men no matter how you train them. The only way for a woman to compete with a man of the same height is through serious use of steroids and large doses of testosterone.

And you know what - even that wouldn't be enough. Women have wider hips. If you take a man and a woman of the same height and some muscle mass the man will STILL run faster because his skeletal structure is better optimized for it.

That was the whole point of the NBA linebacker vs. woman track star analogy. Women can't achieve that body type. Sure, maybe a very small proportion could. But you've got enough men who are huge, muscular and relatively fast to fill professional and college rosters in hundreds, if not thousands of teams across the country.

I know this is offensive to your politics and that what I'm saying isn't politically correct, but that's just a measure of how ridiculous the equal rights movement is. If you want to try and override the influence of millions of years of evolution and get women and men to have no physiological differences that's one thing. But to pretend that they don't exist is just plain stupid. I'm sorry to rain on your parade, but this emperor's got no clothes on.

4. I think your examples of women being different problem-solvers is a pretty good argument for why they need to be in all fields of science and not the ones "we give them the right" to be in.

This point makes no sense. We both claim to believe it's sexist to think that we need to "give them the right" to be in one career or another. The difference is that I follow through with this logic. I assume that women are intelligent, rationale, self-determining creatures. I assume that, unless I'm shown evidence otherwise, if a woman doesn't want to

Re:As a geek girl...

[renoX]

Blah, blah.. No proof, only wild assumptions.

When one doesn't really know, one should better avoid making such empty assertions especially this strongly, that's how you get all sorts of disastrous strong belief..